The Guidance Counselor
by RosewickCrack4Lyfe
Summary: Orion Dusk had done many things in his relatively short life with ease, Bounty Hunter?, One of the most reliable in Remnant, Mercenary?, he was hired by Headmasters, Survivor?, he lost an arm and a bit of his mind but he kept kicking. But when Ozpin offered his newest job, as a Guidance Counselor for his school? Now this would be challenging. Heavy Lore Changes
1. Chapter 1

The Simple Things in Life

Orion loved it when there was a new moon. He could see so many stars out in the night sky with his telescope and scroll in hand on the roof of the apartment complex. Fly Me to the Moon was always one of his favorite songs and he had loved it when the classical station had put it on.

It brought him back to simpler times when he was younger. The few times that he could get both his mother and father out to be able to see the stars in the Mountain Glenn night were some of the best memories in his life.

Moving his left arm to take his scroll off his belt, he had almost forgotten that he had no left arm, that damn stay in the Vale hospital had made sure to remind him of that.

They didn't know what happened to him, they told him. No idea where his arm was, they said. And for Oum's sake they couldn't even explain to him how the hell he was missing over half a decade worth of his memories. Still, he knew it wasn't their fault. They had told him that apparently, he was found wandering on the coast of the Uncharted Lands and that a passing merchant's ship had happened to see him and pick him up. They told him they were surprised he was even alive considering the state that he was found in.

He thought about those past three months in the hospital vividly, realizing that the last damn thing he could remember was when he was leaving Atlas to go to Mistral, which apparently was six years prior. He could at least take comfort in knowing that the past him had invested so much of the money he had earned during his freelancing days that he could afford to pay for all the damn medical bills he got, and for the those damn sleeping pills.

Oum knew how hard he tried to sleep with those damn nightmares all the time, but now wasn't the time to try to remember such events- he had stargazing to get to.

"Heh, at least I have a damn good story to tell people how I lost my arm though," he told himself as he pushed those thoughts out of his head and looked in his telescope. Scorpio looked great this time of the month.

He was in the middle of trying to find Sagittarius when an explosion broke his concentration. "God damn it, I knew I should have moved by now. Another fucking dust robbery," he angrily muttered to himself as he started to pack his telescope as fast as possible.

The part of town he was living in just happened to be the part of town marred by a series of dust robberies led by the Vale Crime Lord, Roman Torchwick. That is what the VNN told him, if he could believe anything they said at least.

"First new moon I get after getting out of the hospital and what happens? There's a motherfucking dust robbery going on." His tirade done as he finished packing up his telescope, he could hear the gunfire and dust explosions getting closer until suddenly, they stopped.

Moving his telescope to the side of the roof, he focused to try to find why the noised had stopped and did not like what he was hearing. There was someone climbing the ladder to the rooftop, most likely one of the gang members responsible for the ruckus down below. Moving his hand to his left holster, he brought out Sirus and cocked back the hammer, keeping his hand in his coat. He wanted to gain the element of surprise to whoever was going to interrupt his night.

Luck was however not on his side as the person to appear right in front of him was none other than Roman Torchwick himself, his appearance matching the VNN's description very well. He indeed looked the part of a high-end crime boss, his white dress suit looking impeccably clean as the rest of his clothing, with the black bowler hat and grey scarf only adding to his aura of mob boss. Still there was just a tiny voice in the back of his mind that just screamed familiarity.

"Well well, now who are you tall, dark and scruffy, and just what are you doing at a roof top in the middle of the night?" Roman's voice was just as chilling as the owner himself. Orion debated what to do with the moment at hand. He knew in his current state, one handed and still recovering from his hospital stay, he couldn't really do much to deter much less stop the crime lord.

Still Orion knew he had to buy time until someone who could beat this fearsome man would come. "My name is Orion, and to answer your second question I'm just stargazing, it's a wonderful night to do so you know," he responded to the criminal, slowly trying to bring Sirus out without drawing Roman's attention.

"Well then, I hope that's going well. By the way is that a Dust Crystal in your coat pocket or are you just going to give me a gift?" he snarked back now bringing up his weapon, a cane, to aim at Orion's face.

"I guess the jig is up then. Sorry I don't have anything to give you," he quipped, dashing to the left and firing Sirus as fast as he could where Roman was standing. Sad to say his marksmanship had taken a dive during his hospital stay and he could see that half the bullets he had fired missed their target completely, while the other half were just as easily deflected by Roman's cane.

Roman laughed at his horrible aim as he easily closed the distanced between the two of them and, with a quick swipe of his cane, had Orion on his backside staring down its barrel.

"Well, I'd love to stay and stargaze with you, but I have a Bullhead to get to." Roman's last words rang in his ears as he could see his finger on the trigger.

"Hey, you stop right there!" Another voice had drawn Roman's attention, allowing him to kick the crime boss in the leg and roll to the side to see his would-be savior.

To say that his savior was not who he thought they were was an understatement. Instead of a Hunter or Huntress, there stood a little girl with an almost all black dress, stockings, and boots contrasted only by the dark red cape she was wearing. It almost looked comical to him how easily she seemed to wield the giant scythe she was carrying in her arms. '_Kids today'_ he swore in his mind '_j__ust have to make everything look so damn big and flashy.'_

"Are you alright Mister?" the Summer Rose lookalike asked him as he shook his head yes and stood back up, holstering Sirus back and drawing out Lepus to face the thief.

Roman was quick to recover as he turned back and told the two, "You are persistent Red, and you need to work on your aim Stargazer." With that comment, Orion put a mental note to beat the shit out of Roman the next time he saw him. "But, the fact still stands I have a bullhead to get to. Ta Ta!" With that the thief threw a dust crystal at the duo and jumped off the side of the building!

He was shocked to think that Roman would ever do such a thing until he heard the loud screeching of a bullhead coming up from that side of the building. In it was Torchwick and he had fired a shot right at the dust crystal.

With barely any time to spare, he grabbed the girl by her cape and tried to pull her back to avoid the ensuing explosion when he heard a very familiar semblance in place of a dust explosion.

'_Please don't be Glynda, please don't be Glynda, for Oum's sake please don't be Glynda Goodwitch. I don't want see Ozpin just yet…_' he thought to himself as he set go of the girl's cape and looked up to where the sound originated. To his disappointment, it was Glynda Goodwitch but, to his credit, she looked just as surprised as he was.

"Orion Dusk, as I live and breathe, where in the world have you been in the past six years?" Her voice still carried the same calm but firm tone he remembered almost a decade prior.

"It's a long story. Now shall we take care of this first before you bring me to Ozpin?" he answered her, trying to keep his attention to the Bullhead as he started taking shots at the engines.

"Alright, but you're coming with me after this to see Ozpin, and you as well young lady," Glynda said back as he could hear the girl almost whine when she heard those words.

All three of them focused their weapon fire, Glynda her telekinesis-controlled rubble, at the bullhead to try to stop it. It had almost seemed to be working until Roman fled the cockpit and left in his place a figure that started shooting goddamn fireballs at them. The three of them didn't have much luck shooting down the Bullhead as they watched it eventually take off in the horizon.

With the skirmish over, Orion turned to face an irate Glynda Goodwitch and dreaded to hear the words that came out of her mouth next. "Now, lets get you two presentable. There is someone that I would like the two of you to meet." Orion really started to regret not moving out sooner.

* * *

"You alright there Miss?" The man's voice had gotten Ruby's attention as she sat parallel to him in a car driving to presumably the place where the Huntress wanted to take them.

"I'm alright thank you, and my name is Ruby, Ruby Rose. You don't have to call me miss," she told the gentleman and he chuckled softly with her response. Now that she wasn't in the middle of fighting a gang of thugs and the man who called her "Little Red" , she could fully see what the man she had helped looked like.

He was tall first off, probably just as tall as her Uncle Qrow, and seemed to be wearing an almost complete black outfit: black slacks, black leather shoes, and even a black thigh length trench coat with a stiff neck collar that had a little orange bow and arrow emblem sewn on to the left chest right above his heart , the only thing that wasn't black that he wore was a faded orange shirt that seemed out of place to her.

Complementing this she saw a simple brown belt which held two holsters. Those held the weapons she saw him use, the guns looked old and didn't sound like any weapon a normal civilian would wield so she just had to find out what the were.

Moving up to his face she could see some more similarities to Qrow, dark raven hair, though his was rather wavy rather than sharp and combed and reached about half way down his neck, a chin which had the shade of a five o clock shadow plaster all over, and a smile put on which reminded her of the times Qrow got away with getting in trouble with something.

The thing that was most similar between the two were the eyes, even though he had striking baby blue eyes instead of her uncle's red ones, they still had that same similar aura of sadness, like he had also experienced the same type of grueling loss and vicious fighting in his life. She noted however that he didn't sound drunk nor had any hint of alcohol in his breath, so she at least hoped he wasn't like her uncle in that aspect.

His final piece of clothing was a black circular cap that he wore on his head. It looked relatively old and faded yet still looked quite nice. Before she could inspect it more, the man had answered her.

"Well then, Ruby Rose, I'm Orion Dusk and thank you for saving my life back there. I will be honest though, I didn't expect someone so. . . young."

Ruby's cheeks puffed up with slight anger as she almost snapped back at him, "And what's that supposed to mean now Mr. Dusk?"

"That either I'm getting old, or that you, Miss Ruby Rose are just that good at fighting," he said with a small smile dawning on his face.

She now realized that his previous remark had not been a remark about her age but rather a subtle complement. She felt a bit silly after that.

"Why thank you Mr. Dusk, I shall have you know I've drank a lot of milk to get to where I am today."

He chuckled again. "You must have, considering you drag that giant scythe around like it's a farming utensil counterpart."

"Aw why thank you, I love my baby," she said, bringing out Crescent Rose in its sniper form to show the man. "Too bad I can't show you its scythe form though, I don't think we have any space. And speaking of weapons, what guns were you firing back there? I've never heard any guns that sounded like the two you use."

"Well then Ruby, allow me to introduce you to Sirus." He took out Sirus, handing it to her by the grip. Handling it, Ruby couldn't believe her eyes. This was no ordinary weapon; in her hands was none other than a Schmied & Wesson Model 6 Revolver. She had seen pictures of it in magazine articles before, but she never thought she would see the actual thing.

This was a Great War Relic, something she only thought would exist in museums, and here she was holding it in her hand, holding the thing like it was worth all the cookies in the world. She slowly started to inspect it, noticing it had not only a longer barrel, but also much longer firing chambers than those in the magazines. Moving towards the wooden grip she could see the same small bow and arrow on each side, once again thinking it was cute and added class.

Breaking open the gun she almost panicked trying to catch the ejected cartridges. "Oh no, no,no, I'm so sorry about that," her voice a whimper as she could have harmed what amounted to history in her very hands.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to empty the chambers after the fight. You just make sure you don't drop him ok?" he said picking up the fallen cartridges.

"So how did you get an eighty-year-old weapon, and why does it look different from the ones I've seen in museums and such?" Ruby asked still mesmerized by Sirus, inspecting the blued steel.

"It's nice to see someone to know their weapons. And to answer you, it was a family heirloom, a heavily modified family heirloom. It fires .500 Multitype Dust bullets," he answered her, his face now a grin as he saw her mouth widen in shock.

Ruby's eyes widened with that, .500 Dust Bullets, the same caliber Crescent Rose fired. Just how could such an old gun handle such powerful rounds?

"I can see from your face that you have questions about that. Sadly that is a long story, a bit too long for now, and I still have to show you Lepus you know."

Her head snapped back to see him with that answer. She forgot he had two weapons. Was his second one just as cool as the first?

Slowly handing him back Sirus, he holstered the gun back and brought out Lepus, handing the gun to her.

'_No way, no way , no way,'_ Ruby's thoughts had almost overloaded when she saw Lepus. Not only did Orion have a Great War Relic that fired Anti Personal Rounds, but also a Schmied & Wesson Model 32, well known in the past as one of the most powerful handguns in Remnant. This man was a walking weapon nut's dream!

It had the same blued steel that Sirus had but seemed to be unchanged except for the grip, which instead of bow and arrow had two yellow crests one below the other.

"Lepus has been unchanged, though. It was a gift from… family," he told her, his tone a bit somber. "Still, do you like it, Ruby? Hell of a gun ain't it?"

"Why yes, yes it is quite the gun." Ruby was almost speechless. This man must have been some type of expert Hunter to use only these two ancient guns. She handed it back slowly, almost like she didn't believe it was real in the first place.

"Goodness, you must be a really skilled Hunter to only take those two weapons on missions, Mr. Dusk."

"Oh, I'm not a hunter, I never was Ruby." His response shocked her. A civilian being able to handle those types of guns, that was absolutely unheard of. "But then how were you able to fire those guns so accurately? And your movements, those weren't the movements of an untrained civilian, you must have at least been trained by a Hunter!"

"I said I never was a Hunter, Ruby, not that I had never received any combat training. Let's just say I was more of a freelancer back in my day."

"A freelancer, what's the difference between that and a Hunter?" She was now intrigued, a man with Hunter-like skills but not a Hunter? What did that entail?

"Well, it's simple; I never went to combat school, never got assigned into a team and finally, I don't own my allegiance to any of the Four Kingdoms." His response had shocked her. If he never went to combat school and didn't have a team to help him on missions, just how good was he?

"How did you get so good at fighting? I've never heard of any non-Hunter combatants, and never met one like you!" Her voice was now drenched with anticipation. She just had to know how he was so good at fighting.

He chuckled with that question. "Let's just say I had a really good teacher, a veteran of the Mistral Bush War, and besides I'm taking a break from missions for now," he said, rubbing his left shoulder.

Now that she thought about it, she had recalled she hadn't seen much of his left arm the entire fight, and with two weapons, wouldn't it be better if he fired both at once? "Why are you taking a break from missions, is it something to do with your left arm," she asked him, pointing to his coat sleeve.

What she saw made her feel somewhat bad for asking as she saw that he was missing his left forearm and saw the cut didn't leave the most uniform of arm left.

"Oh, please don't look at me like that. It's not like I lost my head instead of my arm. Don't worry, I've gotten use to it by now," he told her, sadness in her eyes as he put back on his coat arm.

"Still, it's pretty cool that you can fight as well without going to combat school. By the way, do you know where we're going now?" Ruby, remembering they were still in the car, politely asked, driving somewhere she had no clue was.

"We're going to see one of my old employers I assume. His name is Ozpin and the Huntress you just saw was Glynda Goodwitch, the current Deputy Headmistress of Beacon Academy, and Ozpin is the current Headmaster."

"Oh my gods, really?! We're about to see the Headmaster of Vale's combat school? Why do you think that we're going to them?"

Orion's face scrunched up with thought upon that question. After a couple of seconds of her watching him think, he finally gave her a response.

"I think Ozpin is going to give both of us an opportunity that we can't refuse."

* * *

"You can come in now Orion." Ozpin's voice hadn't changed the old coot. Much like Glynda, the old man still had the same calm, collected and knowing tone he had recalled all those years ago. Orion really didn't want to see him just yet.

He had just seen Ruby exit the door in front of him, overtly excited and jumping, being led by Glynda. Ozpin must have accepted her into the Beacon or something like that.

Orion walked into the room and closed the door softly. Looking in front of him he could see Ozpin's appearance also hadn't changed in the years that he had last seen him. The same black and green suit impeccably fitting and the same expression on his face, the type of look that while not showing anything held so much information and knowledge behind it.

"Its been a while, Orion. If I didn't know any better, I would say the last time I heard any information about you, you had just up and fallen off the face of Remnant," he said, his tone almost joking.

"Well let's just say, the years haven' been the kindest to my body," Orion said, revealing his left arm. "Or my memories either."

"So the reports I have gotten from the Vale General Hospital have been true then, that you can't remember practically anything in the past six years and that you have lost your left forearm in those years?"

Orion almost scoffed at his remark. It sounded a bit too much like a statement rather than a question. "Yes, it's all true Ozpin, now tell me, are you here to try to hire me to do a mission for you? Because if so, the answer is no."

"On the contrary, Orion, I have a rather interesting proposition for you, one similar to the one I just gave young Miss Rose."

"And what offer could you give me, Ozpin? You know I'm not teacher material, and that I can't even help train most of these students. And to top it all off, what would you even give me that I would want? I don't need any Lien anytime soon."

Ozpin's face started to put on a smile with that question. "Why Orion, I could help you with many things: your current living situation, a replacement for your forearm, your memory loss." Orion was really interested in the last two things Ozpin had offered. "Now how could you help me with those last two options Ozpin?" he retorted, trying to keep any interest of Ozpins offer out of the tone of his voice.

"I can convince James to lend us Atlas's newest prosthetics for one of my staff members. I've heard that they can even conduct aura now, and, for your memories, I might not know where you have been for these pats six years, but I bet I can find someone who can; and who would refuse to help the Headmaster of Beacon academy now?"

Orion knew Ozpin had him interested now, and he wasn't wrong. Ozpin was and wasn't many things, but a man of knowledge and secrets he was. If anyone could possibly help him find out his memories it could be him.

"So, what would you need me to do if I were to accept your offer? Ozpin, I told you, I can't teach and I'm not doing any mission for you."

"Well Mr. Orion, its simple: I'm not going to hire you as a teacher but as a student counselor, so to say."

Now that confused Orion. A student counselor, like a guidance counselor? Out of all the jobs why would Ozpin give him that job? It's not like he interacted with many children in his time freelancing, and he didn't even have a clue where to start when it came to mental issues or problems.

"I'm choosing you because of what you told me all those years ago. When I ask you why I should hire you for that very first mission, it is because you bring a much different view in this world, Mr. Dusk"

"And what in the hell is that supposed to mean Ozpin?"

"Why it means exactly what I said. This world is changing Orion, and things are happening at an accelerated and different pace. Bandit raids are occurring on masse, the White Fang is now called the People and Faunus Brotherhood of Equality and has changed from Faunus Rights to Worker Right's all around Remnant , I've even heard from Hunters saying that the Grimm themselves are changing their behavior. This world is changing Mr. Dusk and I need people who can see things in a different light to help lead it. Now would you like to accept my offer?"

Orion was conflicted with Ozpin's offer. He knew in the past what working with Ozpin had led him to do and knew the man was going to hide many things from him no matter how trusted he became to him, but on the other hand, he needed that information. Besides, he could make sure it was only for the coming year, right?

"And by the way Orion, the girl who saved you was in fact Summer Rose's daughter, Ruby Rose. I bet you would like to see both her and the rest of her family again wouldn't you?"

Orion was shocked. So the girl really was Summer's daughter. The years really did pass him by, he thought, remembering the last time he had seen the Xiao-Long/Branwen family. Seeing Ruby much older finally confirmed he really was in the current year, and that time had passed on. He could only hope if he ever saw Yang that he would be able to explain where he was this entire time.

"I accept your offer, Ozpin. When do you want me to come to Beacon?"

Ozpin's slight smile had now evolved into an all-out grin as he answered him. "By the week's end. I'm proud to welcome you, Orion Dusk, as Beacon Academy's newest Guidance Counselor."

**Notes: I've had this in the works for a while, I'm sorry about Exiled, I promise I'll update it by the end of the year. **


	2. Chapter 2

The More Things That Change,

The lull of the airship rocked in Orion's ears like a lullaby as he watched it slowly travel across the sky. It felt like the couple of days that followed Ozpin's offer had gone by in hours rather than days as he could start to see the shadow of Beacon Academy across the horizon, its tall tower standing proud like a lighthouse proving safety and security to the surrounding area.

He never imagined coming back to Beacon for a while now, still he had a job to do and knew it was most likely the fastest and easiest way he would find out what happened to his memories. He was debating in his mind what his plan of action would be for interacting with the students when he heard a noise of apparent pain to the right of him.

It was one of the first-year students, a tall blond boy wearing what he could only describe as anachronistic, wearing a white chest plate with matching shoulder pads, underneath was a short sleeved black hoodie, orange arm sleeves and finally blue jeans with the only weapon on him being an old looking sword clipped to the jean's belt. He kind of reminded Orion of a kid playing pretend, wanting to a knight. Still considering how most Hunters dressed it wasn't the weird costume he had seen in his life.

"Ugh, my stomach." The blonde was on the handrails on the airship, almost heaving as Orion could see no one paying any real attention to the affair he decided to take matters into his own hands. Moving over he tapped him shoulder trying to get his attention.

"Are you airsick kid? Do you need something for your stomach?" he saw the blonde turn to face him with relief in his sky-blue eyes.

"Can you really help me mister?", the kid asked.

Orion put his hand inside his trench coat and came out with a bottle of motion sickness pills, he had gone on missions with people that had motion sickness, it wasn't pretty and a folded- up map of Beacon, he had a feeling if the kid couldn't even bring pills for his motion sickness, a map of the school couldn't hurt him.

"Take this bottle of pills, it'll help with the motion sickness." Handing the kid, the bottle of pills. "Also, I don't think this map would hurt you." Handing him the map after he took one of the pills.

He could see the blonde's complexion change almost instantly as he took the map along with the bottle of pills and put it in his jean pocket. He then started rabidly shaking his hand.

"I really gotta thank you mister, I really thank you, I don't know how long I would be able to last without those pills and I didn't even have a map , and I don't even know the name of my savior.", the blondes voice now chipped compared to his sad state only a couple of seconds prior.

"Its Orion Dusk kid, and your name?", he could see the blonde smile with the question.

"Names Jaune Arc, short, sweet, rolls of the tongue - ladies love it!", Orion chucked in his mind when he had heard that before he realized the kid's name: Arc, that was a name he remembered vividly.

Keeping his mind at the conversation at hand, he responded back to him "Really now, Mr. Arc, do they? The ladies I mean.", a slight smile starting to come on his face.

"They will! Well, I-I hope they will. My mom always says that... Never mind.", Jaune's putting a hand on his neck rubbing it.

Orion started to laugh with that response and gave him a pat on the back, he could at least admit the kid had spirit.

"Don't worry to much kid, you seem to have a good head on your shoulders, just calm down and act yourself and you'll be fine.", he could see Jaune's face turn into a neutral showing as he thanked him back and started to wander off, presumably to introduce himself to other people.

He looked back outside as the thought of his name started to wander back to him: Arc, could this really be the scion of Joseph Arc, the reason he survived Mount Glenn?

He sure looked like him, that as for sure, the same messy blonde hair, striking blue eyes, hell he even had the same air of childish innocence that Joseph had when he met him. Orion put a mental note to try to talk to him as soon as teams were assigned, he knew the boy had potential he just needed to see if Jaune was who Orion thought he was.

Now losing Jaune into the crowd of people, Orion decided for once to pay attention to the holo-television to see if actual had something interesting of note showing.

"The robbery was led by nefarious criminal Roman Torchwick, who continues to evade authorities. If you have any information on his whereabouts, please contact the Vale Police Department. Back to you, Lisa." A male voice was on the holo-television, the picture of Roman to Orion looked like he had seen better times, he could only hope he could repay him that fight.

The voice of Lisa Lavender followed the first, as a picture showing multiple Faunus holding signs with multiple different slogans filled up most of the screen, "Thank you, Cyril. In other news, last night's Workers Right's protest would have turned into a violent mob were in not for the interference of the Brotherhood of Equality, it was only through their intervention that the police had stopped from using physical force" a picture of a white wolf head with a shield and spear behind it appeared on the feed before it was cut and changed into a hologram of Professor Goodwitch.

'_The Brotherhood of Equality, Ozpin told me about that._' Orion thought to himself _'Just who are they, and why do they sound so familiar, did I join them at one point, gods know I would, considering what I've seen.' _His thoughts bringing him back to Atlas, he never should have chosen to work for the Schnee's it was one of the only regrets in his life.

Paying his attention back to the outside he could see that Beacon Academy very clearly now, it couldn't be more than a few minutes before they landed. He pondered to  
himself just how much the school changed while he was gone before letting the lulling of the ship take over his thoughts. 

* * *

"Come on Ruby, get out of that airship and down here with me, Beacon is our new home you know." Yang's voice was a small comfort that Ruby took in spades, here she was in Beacon Academy two years ahead of time. She knew when she accepted Ozpins offer that it would be a change of pace, but finally being at Beacon Academy was an entirely different ordeal. Still, she knew she had to put her best foot forward.

It only took a her a few second of being at Beacon before she got distracted by all of the different weapons that surrounded her, "Ohmygosh, sis! That kid's got a collapsible staff! And she's got a fire sword!" she tried to move closer to the fire sword before Yang pulled her back by her hood.

"They're just weapons little sister, remember what I told you?", Yang's tone turning into her soft more mom voice.

"That weapons are just extensions of the people who wield them, and that the one who use them are the ones that should be known.", Ruby responded back to her sister seeing a big smile form on her face.

"That's right Ruby, now you should go find some more new weapons, there are bound to be weapons that are connected to people who you fine interesting "and with Yang disappeared in a flash with a group of her friend which Ruby swore came out of nowhere. The crowd came so fats and disappeared so quick she could see stars in her vision as she felt herself crash into something and fall on to it.

"And just how did you get down there?" this voice was much different than Yang's, it was high pitched and had air of pride in the tone of it. Opening her eyes, she could see a hand right in front of her and grabbed a hold of it. Being brought back up she could see the person connected to the voice.

It was a white-haired girl seemed to be her height. She was wearing a white sleeveless dress that went down to her thighs, above it was a bolero that ended with a bell shape and red lining on the collar and now could see her face. Pale blue eyes, not unlike the ones she remembered Mr. Dusk having, an even paler face and only now did Ruby realize that face had taken an inquisitive turn.

"Heh, I'm really sorry about that, I promise I didn't mean to run into your luggage.", she responded to the white hair girl, rubbing the back of her neck with her right hand in near shame.

The white hair girl's expression turned a bit softer as she just signed and picked up the luggage that Ruby so gracefully fell over, opening it up she took out something and show it to Ruby, it was piece of fire dust. "You do know what this is right?", her tone of voice sounded condescending, almost like if she viewed Ruby as a baby.

"It's Fire Dust right, I assumed you bought it?", Ruby said starting to pout her face.

"Well at least you aren't as dull as you appear, now here." The white hair girl put the piece of fire dust in her hand "Now take this, I think you'll need it much more than me." And with that the white-haired girl walked away, luggage in hand.

Ruby didn't know how to react after what just happened, yes, she might have crashed into the white-haired girl's stuff by accident, but that's what it was, an accident, it didn't mean she had to treat her like a child! And who was she to act all high and mighty to her like that, weren't they all at Beacon to train as equals, to fight the forces of evil known as Grimm and help the people? Before she started to scheme a petty plot of revenge against the girl, someone tapped on her shoulder.

"You alright there, you seem a bit angry, your starting to crush that piece of dust in your hand.", a male voice ask out of the blue, she turned around to see who it was.

It was a tall blond wearing chest armor, a hoodie and blue jeans, in all he looked to her more like a civilian playing pretend rather than a huntsman, still she couldn't really argue that considering her circumstances of getting here. "Oh it's nothing, just a girl that was being pretty rude to me.", Ruby told the blond, her grip on the dust crystal loosening.

"Why would anyone be mean to such a nice girl like you? Name's Jaune Arc by the way, short, sweet, rolls off the tongue - ladies love it."

Now this blond guy was turning out to be the exact opposite of the girl, not that she minded, but did he really mean the last thing he said, "Do they now?" she asked him back, skepticism in her voice.

Jaune's face started to become flustered as he answered her question "They will! Well, I-I hope they will. My mom always says that... Never mind."

Ruby giggled with that, and put her hand out for a handshake, "Well I'm Ruby Rose, its nice to meet you Jaune Arc." It was only when they started shaking hands when she realized that she was using the hand she held the dust crystal.

The first thing she could hear after the dust explosion that followed was Jaunes apology profusely apologizing to her as she laid down on the ground now covered in ash, her first day at Beacon was not going so well she felt like she just wanted to close her eyes and lay down in the crater of the explosion forever when a familiar voice came along.

"Rough first day, Miss Rose?" she opened her eyes and saw a hand in front of her, taking it, she saw it was Mr. Dusk who had pulled her up and saw a very embarrassed Jaune standing to his right still trying to apologize to her.

"It's been hectic, Orion, and I told you to call me Ruby, Miss Rose makes me sound too old." she answered him

It was at that moment she realized something, just what was he doing here at Beacon? He couldn't have been a student, she was pretty sure he was too old for that, and she didn't remember him saying anything about being a teacher. Just what was he doing here?

"By the way, what are you doing here? I don't recall you tell me you were a teacher, and I don't think Beacon accepts people your age as students?", she blushed after saying that realizing how mean that last part must of sounded " I didn't mean anything about that last part by the way, I bet theirs plenty of reasons you must be here, right?"

Orion let out a hardy laugh with that as he answered her "Well, let just say Headmaster Ozpin gave me a special offer just like her did to you, and if I told you what the offer was now, wouldn't that be disappointing." He pointed his arm at Jaune "I see you've met young Mister Arc, he has quite the explosive personality, doesn't he?" he put his hand over his mouth finally quieting him down

Ruby almost felt bad laughing at that pun, it was almost as bad as Yang's puns but still laughed pushing her laugher back she answered him "Well its nice to see you again, Orion, and Jaune Arc has been nothing but nice to me, unlike that white-haired piece of. . . "she stopped at the last part seeing that she was starting to grumble to herself causing both Orion and Jaune to raise their eyebrows.

"Anyways Miss Rose, I believe Mr. Arc wanted to say something to you?" he took his hand off Jaune's mouth "Now Mr. Arc, will you be able to apologize to Ruby without sounding like a broken computer?" Ruby saw Jaune's head nod yes as he slowly opened his mouth.

"I'm sorry about the explosion I caused, I didn't see that the dust crystal was in the same hand I was shaking you with."

Ruby now felt sad, Jaune didn't know any better, he didn't give her that crystal and it certainly wasn't his fault she started to crack it "It's not your fault, Jaune, it was that white hair girls fault and her stupid. . ." she stopped talking seeing as she started grumbling again "I forgive you anyways, now how did you meet Mr. " before she could say his name she looked around and saw he was nowhere in sight, just how did he disappear so quickly?"

"Oh, he said something about letting the students interact with themselves and trying to find someone named Ozpin.", she did not that, now she was all alone again with someone she barely knew, she knew conversations weren't her strong suit and tried to find some sort of weapon on Jaune, she at least knew she could talk about weapons for days.

Seeing a sheathed sword on his hip she breathed a mental sigh of relief as she asked Jaune "So what's that sword on your hip?"

Jaune's eyes moved down to the sword as he took a hand to unsheathe it, "Oh this? This is Crocea Mors, it was my great great grandfather's weapon, its mine now."

While Ruby liked her Crescent Rose, she did have to give props to people using more traditional weapons, people like Jaune and Orion showed there was still some love for less flashy ways of fighting. "Well that's pretty cool, does the sheathe do anything?" with that Jaune took the sheathe off his hip and after a short second it transformed into a shield with two yellow arcs in the middle

"That's pretty neat I can appreciate people who like the classics, now its time to show you Crescent Rose." She was excited, she always loved showing new people her baby, taking it off her back she quickly twirled it above her before fully transforming it into its scythe form and rested it on her shoulders.

"Whoa, whoa whoa, is that a scythe?"

"Yeah, its also a customizable, anti-material high velocity rifle."

"Ugh, eh, er, what?" Ruby could see his face shift in confusion with her answer and decided that layman's terms would be best for this conversation.

"It's also a gun."

"Well that's really cool, so before you get in to more detail about that do you know where we are supposed to go?"

Ruby had forgotten, they were supposed to meet at the student union for an orientation. "Oh, we were told to go to the student union, but I don't know where that is, do you know where that is Jaune?"

"Well, I didn't know we had to go to a student union," Ruby didn't like the sound of that "But, Mr. Dusk gave me a map of Beacon, so that probably will show the way."

As Ruby started to follow Jaune, map in his hand she decided that maybe today wasn't go as bad as she thought it was. 

* * *

Bella Nightshade almost on a razor's edge when she walked into the student union, even though she was almost completely certain no one would recognize her, she still thoroughly scoured the room to make sure she didn't see any Brotherhood members in the crowd. She really wanted to make sure that her secret identity: Blake Belladonna, would stay that, a secret.

Scanning the crowd, Bella could see a multitude of interesting figures in the room, one was the black-haired girl who she saw in the courtyard earlier, wielding that giant scythe, she was talking to a tall blonde haired girl, maybe they were friends perhaps, still anyone who could wield a weapon of that size with such finesse should be noted, passing over them she could see four-time Mistral champion Pyrrha Nikos standing alone amongst the crowds, that was another person she took note of as she scanned it more trying to see anyone else of note.

The last person of note she saw was one of the only people she wished she could avoid forever, it was the former heiress of the Schnee Dust Company, Weiss Schnee in the ice and flesh. She looked the part of being more an ice sculpture rather than a real person as she could see her coldly scold the same black-haired girl from earlier. Focusing on the two, her enhanced hearing came in handing for such things, as her bow twitched to overheard the conversation.

Apparently, the black-haired girl, who she found out in the conversation was named Ruby, was trying to talk to Weiss about something relating to a luggage and a piece of fire dust, trying to follow it the best she could Bella could hear the two of them argue about a multitude of things, dust, hunters, and somehow even the topic of siblings came up. By the end Weiss handed Ruby a pamphlet and walked away, Ruby still almost fuming before being tapped on the shoulder and brought into a hug by the same tall blonde. With that, the microphone in the room started to buzz as Professor Ozpin and standing aside him, Professor Goodwitch had taken center stage.

"I'll... keep this brief. You have traveled here today in search of knowledge, to hone your craft and acquire new skills, and when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people. This is good, the world is ever changing and needs people to help bring this change. The knowledge you will gain here will help you bring this change, whether it be good or bad it is up to you." Ozpin stopped talking, he waved his left arm as to bring someone in "To help teach you the changing world students, I have brought a brand-new staff member into Beacon Academy"

This drew many whispers and questions to the student body, Bella included, usually staff members for Hunter Academies were introduced or at least told months prior to the start of the year, to introduce a new staff member in the middle of student orientation was unheard of, still Bella was interested in who and what the new staff member would bring.

A tall gentleman dressed in a black trench coat with matching slacks, a jarring orange shirt and a kepi hat walked on to stage and Ozpin handed him the microphone "My name students, is Orion Walter Dusk, and it will be my pleasure to be your Guidance Counselor for this up coming school year in Beacon Academy."

And with that the room almost exploded with questions and were just as quickly hushed down by an irate Professor Goodwitch. To be fair, Bella had almost just as many questions, a guidance counselor? Beacon never had one of those, and even if it had just made the position just what did this raggedy look man have to offer? Bella however did hear a large gasp coming from where Ruby was, perhaps she knew this Orion?

"I can see you have many questions, and I'll try to make this quick because you all have a long day ahead of you. Ozpin was right about one thing, this world is changing, and it is changing fast, and while I may not look like it I have gone on many many different types of missions." He moved his left coat sleeve to reveal a stump in place of his left forearm.

"And I have the scars to prove so, needless to say it isn't my combat experience Ozpin has hired me here for today, it is my outlook on life. While some of you might be wondering what in the hell that means I'm here to tell you honestly I don't know that fully yet." Even more whispers

"That however, will not stop me from helping to assist any all and all of you students because at the end of the day, we all need a helping hand and another view on life. And to address all the Faunus in the room and anyone who especially dislikes Faunus, at the end of the day the greatest evils in this world don't care what race you are, they'll tear you down regardless. Just remember, I will help any student that comes to visit me." And with that Orion handed over the microphone to Professor Goodwitch and moved to stand next to Professor Ozpin.

"You will gather in the ballroom tonight; tomorrow, your initiation begins. Be ready. You are dismissed." The three adults eventually left shortly after that leaving a very mesmerized audience, a counselor who didn't even know what he was going to counsel, what a novel thought that was to her. Still, Orion, or what ever was his name was, his voice it sounded familiar to her, she just couldn't pin point it yet, maybe Ruby would have more information about him, maybe he could help her with her past, after all, he did say he would help anyone. Shoving those thoughts aside for now, Bella just decided right now the best course of action would be to get lost in the crowd and hopefully later that day find out just a bit more about this guidance counselor. 

* * *

"So how was your first day at Beacon Ruby, make any new friends?" Yang's voice was just as boisterous as ever as nightfall had come, bringing their first day at Beacon to a close.

"It was alright Yang, and I honestly, I guess I made one friend, Jaune, he seems nice enough."

"That's fantastic Ruby! Just one question, why did you gasp when you saw the new dude, Orion, you don't know him do you? Did he take my sisters precious innocence? If so just tell me and I'll remove him from this planet!" her voice was starting to get higher as she grabbed her shoulders and pulled her into a bear hug that Ruby dreaded.

Ruby tried to get out of her grip and had to resort to using her semblance to get out of Yang's life crushing hug "Its noting like that Yang, it's just that he was the guy I told you about, you know the guy who helped me during that fight with Roman along with Professor Goodwitch? Orion was the man who was on the rooftop, I knew he was here, I just didn't expect him to be working here of all things, I promise that's all Yang!"

Yang's face took an inquisitive look as Ruby could see the cogs in her brain shift trying to see any dishonestly in her words. "Well, I believe you Ruby, still who would have thought that a completely random dude you fought with on a rooftop would become Beacon's newest counselor! That sounds almost as absurd as"

Ruby's face had started to turn into a frown, she had to interrupt her sister before she finished that sentence, "Someone being accepted into a combat school two years younger than their supposed to be Yang?"

She just realized with Yang's remark that both her and Orion had arrived here at Beacon under somewhat similar circumstances, and if people started to question his own legitimacy as a Beacon Staff Member how would they react to her own story? She had to defend his honor as a fellow outcast, even if he didn't know it.

Yang eyes went wide with Ruby's remark as she tried to backpedal on her words hard "Oh no no no, its nothing like that Ruby, I just was trying to say that I'm just surprised that the both of you managed to meet back up here at Beacon, not to mention at the same time"

Ruby's smile returned to here face as she rushed to give Yang a hug "Thank you sis, I always know I can count on you for your words of wisdom"

"So, you met the newest staff member on Beacon on a rooftop fight, sounds like an interesting story if I've ever heard one", a third voice cut through to the two sisters as they looked who it was. It was an averaged height black hair girl wearing a black nightgown and a matching black bow on the top of her head. The black hair girl walked up to the duo and put her left hand out for a hand shake "I'm Bella Nightshade, and you are?" Ruby looked up to Yang and saw that she was happily nodding her head in support. She really must have wanted her to make as many friends as possible.

Ruby shook Bella's hand "Ruby, Ruby Rose, and this is my sister Yang Xiao Long" She could see Bella raise an eyebrow and Ruby knew why. She was used to having people raise eyebrows about Yang and her being sisters, they looked practically looked nothing alike and didn't act remotely similar. "She's my half-sister, we share the same dad but have different moms."

Bella only gave a quick nod before asking again about the story "Ah well you see it all started when I was going to make favorite Dust store to buy refills for Crescent Rose's bullets. . ." As the story went on Bella didn't reply with much only giving a nod or saying interesting ever so often. Still after Ruby was done tell her story to Bella, she got to ask about the book she was hold and found out it was about a man with two souls. While the book wasn't something that she would read just the fact she got to talk to another person without devolving into a stuttering mess was fine by her.

Before the two knew it, the intercom above them came to life with Professor Goodwitch stating it was now 11 PM and it would be preferred that the students had started retiring for the night, they were to have their Hunters exam tomorrow, so the advice was sound.

Wishing Bella, a good night Ruby turned to see her sister have a grin that almost took up the entirety of her face. "See I told you sis, making friends isn't so hard, all you have to do is take a chance to talk with them." Ruby only nodded in agreement as the two sisters readied to retire for the night. 

* * *

Orion's first day at Beacon was interesting to say the least, first he had possibly met the son of the man who saved his life and raised him for a couple of months, and then after that found out that not only was Ruby Rose a student at Beacon, but also her older cousin Yang Xiao Long was also attending at the same time, needless to say he had really hoped Qrow told Ruby the truth while he was gone.

She deserved that much from him, he thought, and finally here he was with the kicker, living in one of the student dorm rooms, while it might have been one on the wings far from most of the incoming student body he was still surprised he would be living in the same dorm as them.

It still shouldn't have surprised him much that Ozpin supposedly forgot to tell him that his office would be in a wing of the student dorms, he remembered Ozpin telling him something about being readily available to the students to be the most helpful. It was just a shame he seemingly forgot to tell him that the room he would be living in also was in the student dorm.

Still, it wasn't a bad first day as he was excited that he got a room on the second floor of the dorm, it included a very nice balcony which he wasted no time setting up his telescope, the moon cycle was still new, so he could still go stargazing with ease.

He was in the middle of trying to find Usar Major when the flapping of a bird wings entered to his right, looking to his right he could see it was a crow, a crow with very familiar red eyes.

"Oh my sweet mother of Oum, this better not be who I think it is" he muttered to himself as he returned to his telescope hoping that the crow wasn't who he thought it was.

Soon the noise of the crow left the area and he breathed a sigh of relief, maybe it wasn't Qrow after all, then he felt his shoulder being tapped.

'_Oh no, it is him'_, he thought to himself as he slowly turned around to face the intruder on his balcony. He turned and was staring face to face in the eyes of a shocked Qrow Branwen, in the flesh, he looked the same as he did over a decade ago, just older, still had the same torn red cape, and same black and silver suit, the only thing of note he could bring to mind is that with the heavy breathing he heard coming out of him, it didn't actually smell like alcohol.

Before he could even bring himself to talk, Qrow pulled him into a tight hug that he gave back after a quick second of surprise. "Is that really you Orion, or are my eyes just showing me my alcohol infused nightmares again to show me the illusion of a man who disappeared all those years ago?" his voice was soft, and cracking at the seams, Orion guessed that he had gotten over that last argument they had all those years ago.

"Its me Qrow, I'm sorry I haven't gotten to tell you I was back yet", he tried to gently push him back a to show him his left arm, he saw Qrow's eyes expand just an inch when he saw his arm, "Let's just say a lot has happened in the years since we last saw each other, and I'm so sorry I didn't apologize to you all those years ago. It was my fault that" Qrow interrupted him before he could finish.

"No, its not, it wasn't your fault, it wasn't my fault, it wasn't anyone's fault, we were all just going through . . . troubled times. Now, about your arm" Qrow pointing to said appendage "Now are you going to tell me about that, and where the hell you have been over the past six years, or is that a story just a bit longer than one of the fairy tales I told Ruby and Yang when was young?"

Orion had to crack a grin, Qrow still had his odd sense of humor at least, as he moved to open the door to his room, "Why don't you come on in Qrow, I have just the drink to tell my tale for you." And with that Qrow followed him in, Orion knew that the ensuing conversation would be very very interesting for both of them.


	3. Chapter 3

. . . The More They Stay the Same

The morning sunlight was not nearly as rough on Pyrrha Niko's eyes as she expected, as she walked along the near empty hallway to her weapon locker. She recalled to herself that in the Mistralian mornings, the sunlight was one of the many things she despised about her early morning trainings. That was another thing to check off in her list about how happy she was to go to Beacon Academy instead of Haven.

She was still very surprised that upon landing in Beacon that there were no crowds of fans waiting there, no cameras flashing, no reporters asking why she went to Beacon instead of Haven, it was all so new to her not being trailed by people all the time, perhaps people in Vale didn't watch many Mistral tournaments or at the very least didn't worship her as much here.

She couldn't get her hopes up too much however, she knew it would only take one person to recognize who she was, and all this would all fade, she could only hope before that she could just make one good friend.

It seemed all her thoughts had made her walk down the hallway much faster as she had to stop herself from hitting to door, opening it and walking in she moved to find the 600's, her locker number was 637. When she finally turned the corner to get to her locker however, she saw one of the people she really didn't want to see: the ex-heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, Weiss Schnee was standing in front of her, as luck would have it though her back was turned towards her and Pyrrha decided that maybe she would be able to get her weapons without her turning around.

That quickly not an option ,as it seemed that Weiss had noticed she was behind her and let out a remark "If you need to get to your locker, could you please give me a moment it won't take me anymore than another minute" Pyrrha decided the best thing to do now was to wait in silence till she was done and hope she didn't see her face.

"You know it is rude to not answer someone when they ask you a question" Weiss turned around to face her, a shocked expression quickly morphed on her face "Oh, Pyrrha Nikos, it's a pleasure seeing you here, watching your tournaments was one of the reasons making my decision to abdicate my title to my brother was so much easier" Weiss put out her right hand which Pyrrha shook if not just a little loosely.

Pyrrha chuckled to herself in her mind, maybe the infamous Weiss Schnee was nicer than she thought "Why thank you, Weiss, that's very nice to hear that I've inspired not only the general population but people of your stature to help fight the Grimm, I just have to ask, why did you abdicate your title as heiress? You could have been both a Huntress and an heiress, so why did you do it?"

"Oh, I have my reasons, anyways my brother is more than qualified to run the company than me, he prefers it more anyways. So Pyrrha, have you given any thought to whose team you'd like to be on? I'm sure everyone must be eager to unite with such a strong, well-known individual such as yourself, Oum knows that with the two us together none of the other students would stand a chance"

Here was the part Pyrrha dreaded, nice or not she had a feeling Weiss Schnee would try to convince her into teaming up, most likely to improve the prestige of her family "Well, I think it would be best for the chips to fall where they may, if you get what I'm saying."

"Well, I hope if the situation allows us, we get put on the same team together."

Pyrrha rubbed the back of neck she knew this conversation was going nowhere quick, "Well that sounds grand." She answered Weiss praying in her mind for a anything to get out of this.

Luck however seemed to be on her side as before Weiss could speak another word another voice interrupted her "Why hello there, you know what else is grand? Me. Jaune Arc. Nice to meet you."

Turning to face the voice Pyrrha saw that it was a tall blonde boy waring a short sleeved black hoodie, a white chest plate and shoulder guards, along with a pair of simple blue jeans, but right now this Jaune Arc fellow looked to be her hero. Moving out of his way she decided to just wait on the sidelines and watch to see what would unfold, she still needed to get her weapons anyways.

Weiss face turned to a frown turned to face him "You again." Her tone, Pyrrha could hear, was full of distain and pure annoyance as she almost scowled at the boy.

"So, Weiss, couldn't help but overhear your fondness of me the other day." Jaunes voice on the other hand didn't seem to change at all, did he not realize that Weiss didn't want to talk with him?

"You're joking, right? As if someone of my status would actually talk to someone as scruffy, unkempt and annoying as you?"

It seemed what ever Weiss was saying kept going right over Jaune's head as he just kept talking to her, Pyrrha found this almost funny in a sad sort of way "Don't worry! No need to be embarrassed! So, been hearing rumors about teams! I was thinking you and me would make a good one! What do you say?"

Pyrrha felt almost bad by this point Weiss obviously wanted nothing to do with Jaune yet he kept on talking, perhaps if she tried to enter the conversation this farce would end? "Actually, I think the teams are comprised of four students each, so-"

Before she could even finish Jaune promptly interrupted her and just kept talking, Pyrrha then just realized something, did he not know who either one of them were? Maybe this was how he kept on his portrait of confidence.

"You don't say. Well, hot stuff, play your cards right and maybe you could join up with the winning team."

At this point Weiss almost looked like a tomato as she moved and step back and pointed at her of all things, "Jaune, is it? Do you have any idea who you're talking to?"

"Not in the slightest snow angel." So he really didn't know who either of them were, now this was really shocking to Pyrrha, even if someone didn't watch any holo-television or read the news, or even care about Hunters and Huntress, he must of seen her somewhere right?

"_This_ is Pyrrha.", Pyrrha waved to Jaune saying hello to him.

"She graduated the top of her class at Sanctum."

"Never heard of it."

Weiss face turned even more confused as she continued, Pyrrha was starting to get real interested in this Jaune fellow, maybe he could be the type of person she was looking for as a friend. "She's won the Mistral Region Tournaments four years in a row! A new record!"

"The what now?"

Weiss's hand was now smack dab on her forehead as she almost growled the next words that she said, "She's on the front of every Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes box!"

That captured Jaune's attention as he turned to her with stars in his eyes "That's _you_?! But they only do that for star athletes and cartoon characters!" with this answer Pyrrha decided she would keep a close tab on Jaune Arc, a person who didn't have any idea of who she was or even heard of her and only finally recognized her by a cereal box. She already found the friend she wanted, all she had to do was make sure they became partners.

"So, after hearing all of this, do you really think you're in a position to ask _either of us_ to be on your team? "

"I guess not. I'm sorry.."

Now was Pyrrha chance, maybe she could try to try to convince Jaune to be her partner instead "Actually, Jaune, I think you'd make a great leader!" his face turned bashful responding with "D'oh, stop it!"

Weiss looked mortified as she grumbled out "Seriously, please stop it. This kind of behavior should not be encouraged!"

And with that Jaune's bravado returned full force as started talking to Weiss again "Sounds like Pyrrha's on board for Team Jaune. Spots are filling up quick! Now, I'm not supposed to do this, but maybe I could pull some strings, find a place for you. What do you say?"

With that Pyrrha could see Weiss reach a breaking point as she took out her weapon, a rapier chambered dust, and suddenly spun it on ice dust and froze Jaune's legs to the floor!

Pyrrha could hear her curse to herself as she walked away while she tried to deice Jaune's legs with her shield.

The only thing she was thinking of during this was the possibility of how interesting her year would be if she could be teammates with Jaune.

* * *

"Now, I'm sure many of you have heard rumors about the assignment of "teams." Well, allow us to put an end to your confusion. Each of you will be given teammates... **today**."

What Professor Goodwitch just said rattle through Ruby's ears as she really wasn't prepared to get a partner just yet. Here she was along with everyone else standing of a side of a cliff for Oum's sake and now they tell them that their going to get their partner today? Talk about mind nerving for her as she had to stop herself from shaking in place

'_Its alright, Ruby it will be fine just think happy thoughts.' _Mentally trying to calm down as Professor Ozpin just added more fuel to said mental fire "These teammates will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon. So it is in your best interest to be paired with someone with whom you can work well."

'_Its fine I can just get my sister, or Jaune, or even that Bella girl as my partner, right?'_

"That being said, the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years."

That was the straw that broke Ruby's mental back, she was now going on full blown panic mode on her mind as she tried to calm herself down enough so her could listen to what Professor Ozpin was saying. _'Ok Ruby, Ok, I have one chance, I have to make sure it's someone, anyone, except Weiss, anyone but her.'_

She managed to calm herself down and was about to psyche herself backup when she was sent careening into the early morning sky.

Ruby enjoyed the fresh breeze around her as she fell into the Emerald Forest, sadly while falling she couldn't stop herself from practically vaporizing a poor black bird in her trajectory

"Sorry birdy!" she cried out, as she took out Crescent Rose and shot out a few rounds to slow her down, once she could see the tree line she quickly shifted it back to scythe form and grabbed on to one of the tree branches using the momentum she had to land on it.

Hopping down to the ground she started to sprit off into the thick forest lost in thought '_Ok Ruby, you know what you have to do, you have to find Yang, find Yang, find Yang, well maybe not just Yang, Jaune would be nice, although he didn't seem no confident in his abilities, still he would be ok, oh and Bella to, she seems nice, even if she didn't talk too much during my rambling, the types of books she reads are interesting, I just hope she could just talk more'_

Rustling from some nearby bushes to her left brought her back to reality as she drew upon Crescent Rose's sniper form.

"I would like it if you didn't start shooting at me" a familiar voice said and out of the bushes Bella Nightshade came out with a dry smirk on her face.

To say Ruby was relieved was an understatement as she rushed to hug the girl "Oh thank you , thank you , thank you , I knew I would get one of you guys as my partner" she was unable to see Bella's smirk turn into a tentative smile as she slowly tried to pry the smaller girl off her.

"You ok there?" Blake asked as she finally got Ruby out of her personal space.

Ruby felt embarrassed, here she was a student at Beacon and she couldn't even keep her cool when she found her partner, looking to the side bashfully she answered "Yeah, I'm sorry about that its just " she paused "I'm just really happy that I have you as my partner now and I feel really bad that I'm acting like a kid and I-" Blake put her hand in front of her mouth to stop her from talking

"Its fine, we might have some company we have to take care of first" with that Blake took out her own weapon and pointing it to some growls in the nearby bushes , it looked to Ruby like a mishmash of a Gesmbh Model 4 Handgun, a katana and a cleaver, in other words it was amazing and Ruby needed to know everything about it.

Before she could ask though, she realized that the growls were getting closer and brought Crescent Rose back out shifting it into its scythe form. She could see now that Beowolfs had come out from the forest in front of them, but also all around them the sounds of growls were getting closer. Taking one glance at Bella telling her "I'll take the left side" and the two Huntress jumped into the fray, now this is what Ruby was good at.

Ruby felt alive as she went speeding from Beowolf to Beowolf using swift strikes and Crescent Rose's recoil to avoid any of their strikes making short work of the intruding Grimm. Taking a quick glance at Bella she could see that she was more than capable to handle for herself as she saw her using a ribbon on her weapon as a sort of grappling hook to quickly go from enemy to enemy.

After taking out the last of her Grimm, Bella turned to face her as a shocked expression dawn on her face as Ruby could see her start to yell something. It was just then Ruby realized that there was growling behind her as she turned around and saw an Alpha Beowolf readying to strike her. Before she could even react, Bella's weapon had flown up and struck the Alpha Beowolf right into its skull, using this opportunity Ruby transformed her weapon into its sniper form and took shot after shot on the underbelly of the distracted beast.

After what felt like too many shots to count, Ruby could see the beast finally start to dissolve and Bella behind her, weapon in tow. "I'm sorry I was too distracted that I didn't see that Beowolf, it could have really hurt me." Ruby felt awful now, that was the second time today that her brand new partner had to save her from her own distractions.

Bella put her left hand on her shoulder as she started to say something "Its fine, just remember to keep your head in the game, Aura can't protect you from distractions you put on yourself. Now about those relics were supposed to find"

That made Ruby feel better, it was nice to hear someone not chide her for being too airheaded "Heh, thanks, anyways, I think we should go . . . " taking a quick glance around, she could see to their north what appeared to be an opening outing " There, to the north, I see an outing where the forest stops, the relics must be there!" Ruby could only see Bella's head nod as she started to walk north.

"Wait!" Ruby almost yelled, she saw Bella's head turn around as opened her mouth, "It's called Gambol Shroud, that's the name of my weapon I remember seeing that look in your eyes." She then turned around and started walking back north, Ruby was quick to follow her, trying to cover up the fact that she was more interested in the weapon than her partner when they first landed. If she had only waited just a split second more she would have seen the giant black feather drop down to the forest floor behind her.

* * *

"So, what do you think about the pairs formed Orion?" Ozpins voice brought Orion back to the present as he, Ozpin and Glynda were currently watching as the last paring of a Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie was being shown to them on Ozpin's scroll..

"I think Ozpin, that the pairs formed today, in particular Miss Rose with Miss Nightshade along with Miss Schnee and Miss Xiao Long will prove to make an interesting year."

"And this last pairing, of Mr. Lie Ren and Miss Nora Valkyrie?" Ozpin continued to ask, taking a sip from his mug of hot coffee.

"I think that those two have a deeper history together than what we see right now." He could see Ozpin turn to Glynda

"And you Glynda? What do you think?"

"I honestly can't possibly imagine those two getting along. Still, he's probably better off than Miss Nikos." She pressed on the scroll, the picture now shifting to show Pyrrha and Jaune entering a cave "I don't care what the transcripts say, Mr. Arc is obviously not ready for this type of combat, still. They should reach the temple in a few minutes along with the other students."

Orion attention peaked with that remark "Still Glynda, it would be best not to judge an Arc by his first appearance, remember you meeting Joseph Arc and I right after Mountain Glenn all those years ago?"

"Yes, you both reeked of Grimm, blood and dust, to this day I still don't know how a rookie cop straight from the academy and a child who wasn't even ten years old escaped that death hole."

"Well Glynda, some days I question that myself. Still, give young Jaune some more credit, I think he holds a lot of potential. What do you think Ozpin?" Orion could see that Ozpin was just too enthralled at watching his scroll. Knowing from experience that when Ozpin was focused on something not even a charging Goliath would be able to break his attention. He instead went back on thinking about his conversation he had last night with Qrow.

What Qrow told him was unnerving to say the least, that he couldn't bring himself to tell Ruby the truth, about how Yang had to take up the mantle of adult in the house after Tai eventually started drinking himself and how all these events added up to the fact that both Ruby, Yang and himself couldn't even recognize each other. That was the really depressing part about the entire thing, how he couldn't even realize the girls he once called nieces couldn't even recognize him and vice versa.

Still, he knew he couldn't drop the bombshell on the two of them that Qrow was Ruby's actual father and that they were cousins rather than sisters, as close as he was with them, he still felt that Qrow would have to be the one to tell them the truth. No matter what he did Qrow would still have to be the one to reintroduce himself to Ruby as her actual father not him.

He only regretted not staying just a bit longer. He knew Summer's untimely demise affected all three of them but with the amount of bravado Tai and Qrow they showed him he thought they would be able to take care of Ruby and Yang. Thought being the word, after what he saw at Atlas however, he could only think to himself why he hadn't why he wouldn't go back to Qrow and Tai, perhaps what memories he was missing could fill in the blanks for that as well, whenever he got them back that was.

Orion knew what his priorities were now though, first to reintroduce himself to his nieces and second, try to find time to introduce himself to Jaune Arc. After asking Ozpin to look at his files he now knew for certain this was Joseph Arc's son, seeing him in action he saw that the boy was clearly lacking in his training, but he knew in the end it didn't matter much. He saw the same potential in the boy as his Master saw in him all those years ago. All he would need to do is just get the chance to help him, and anyways, he owned the Arc family a debt and knew their mantra by heart: An Arc never goes back on his word. Now it was his turn to return the favor to the family.

Oh, and finally read those damn books about the human psyche that Ozpin gave him, maybe that would help him connect with these kids more. He knew he would need all the help he could get as he took out his own scroll and turned it on, focusing on Ruby and Bella entering an open clearing.

* * *

Pyrrha followed Jaune deeper in the cave, she still couldn't believe when he told her that he had trained without his Aura unlocked, the lack of wavering is his voice he told her gave him credence to his words but still, a Hunter in training with no aura unlocked. She added that to the growing list of things that Jaune had surprised her with, perhaps his family was against him becoming a Hunter? Maybe that's why he hadn't heard of her or Weiss beforehand.

"Hey Pyrrha, you see these writings on the walls?" he pointed his torch to illuminate it more, it looked to her like rudimentary drawings of a group of humans fighting what appeared to be a Deathstalker.

"Yes, Jaune, I don't think this is where the relics are, I'm pretty sure that's a picture of a Deathstalker." He turned back to face her a small frown on his face.

"Well, can't you humor me just a little bit longer? Anyways, I made the torch" he remarked as he tripped and extinguished said torch leaving them both in the darkness.

Just then Pyrrha could see the air surrounding them change, it turned from a calm breeze into an almost suffocating warm coat, as if something else was down them with them, something big.

"Do you feel that?" she readied Milos in its rifle form as she could hear Jaune getting back up.

"What? Something other than my incompetence?"

"No, something _warm_, are you sure you still want to continue, I don't think that picture of a Deathstalker back there was for no reason."

"It doesn't matter. Anyways I'm pretty sure the two of us can handle Deathstalker can't we?" bravado returning to his voice as she could hear him continue to wander further into the dark cave.

She sighed to herself. She knew better but somehow his words convinced her as she responded to him "Alright Jaune, lets continue on."

It didn't take very long for them to see something in the short distance, it was relatively large, about three times the size of her head and had a faint golden glow around it.

Pyrrha could hear Jaune rapidly run towards it as she could see his hand touch the glowing object.

"Hey look, I think this might be the relic." She could see him try in vain to grab the object but whenever he tried it moved away from him. "Hey, bad relic, stop moving" She could see him finally get a hold of the "relic" and saw that said "relic" was raising him ever so higher into the air.

"Uh Pyrrha, I don't think this is a relic anymore."

Pyrrha flipped the safety of Milos and readied to fire as multiple red eyes appear in the darkness. In a flash she opened fire where she could see the eyes while in turn trying to backpedal as fast as she could while doing so. Seeing that she shots weren't having much of an effect and how Jaune was most likely hanging on its stinger she knew the best course of action at the time was to use she families secret combat technique: she slung Milos on her back and ran away from where she entered from.

It took less than a minute for her to sprint out of the cave, she could hear the skittering of the Deathstalker and screams of her unfortunate partner behind her get louder as she readied Milos's rifle form again. What she didn't expect was the Deathstalker to completely crash out of the entrance of the cave entirely, it was big, bigger than any Deathstalker that she ever saw, that still didn't stop her from taking shots at its tail to try to get Jaune down from its stinger.

Jaune's screams turned into pleas as she could start to understand what he was saying while she continued to take shots off "Help! Whoa-ah-ah-ah-ah! Why?! Pyrrha! He-e-e-elp! Pyrrha, this is not the relic! It's not!"

"Just whatever you don't-" Before she could finish her sentence the Deathstalker shook off Jaune somewhere into the far-off forest behind her. Pyrrha decided that getting her partner back to help her face this beast would be the much better option now and sprinted in the direction she saw him fly. She could only hope that his second fall of the day would be better than his first.


	4. Chapter 4

Through Trials and Tribulation

Bella had done some really question things in her life, having served in many of the Brotherhoods more shady operations and in particular she regretted that last mission, it didn't matter that Adam was right that the train was automated, if they to resort to stealing that much dust and causing so much wanton destruction, no amount of giving it back to the down trodden person would justify how they got it.

She never however expected to ever ride on the back of a giant Nevermore as part of her entry challenge to get into Beacon though. She could see Ruby hanging on just a little bit ahead of her as the two of them were now hundreds of feet in the sky. She could didn't know how the little reaper convinced her that getting on the back of the damn bird was a good idea but now she had more pressing questions to face: like how she would get down for example.

"Do you have a plan to get off this thing?" she yelled over the high winds as she saw Ruby turn to face her.

"Look down, I think theirs some ruins down there and that's where the real relics are." she yelled back ungrasping the Nevermore for a split second to point at the ground.

She looked down and saw there indeed were a set of stone ruins with multiple pillars in the middle which appeared to have small chess pieces on the top of them. In addition to that she could see two figures on the ground looking up at them, one was Ruby's sister she met the day before Yang Xiao Long, while the other was none other than Weiss Schnee.

She instantly felt sorry Yang having to have someone like that be her partner but then realized her from the outgoing behavior she saw from her yesterday she would most likely annoy the girl which almost put a smile on her face. Then she remembered where she was and yelled to Ruby again "And how are we supposed to get down there?"

"We jump!" Bella could only look with a mixture of shock and exasperation as she said that she wasn't serious, was she? "And yes, I'm serious, I'm pretty sure our Aura will absorb the fall, just watch me" and with that Bella could only stare as she saw Ruby let go of the Nevermore and start to plummet down to the ground bellow. She watched in shock and awe as she saw middle way down that another student, a tall blonde boy crashed right into her sending them both into the tree lines.

She sighed to herself as she thought of any other way that she could get down, it was long before she realized that by this point really the only option they she was really was to jump and so she let go of the Nevermore and took the dive.

While in mid fall she could see the same blonde boy in the tree line jump out to most likely try to catch her. Knowing that if he had succeeded they would both be sent fall back into the ground, she took out Gambol Shroud using the ribbon on it caught the blonde boy in mid air and chucked him back higher into the air, then when she could see that he was directly above her she pulled the ribbon down and caught him princess style in her arms sent the two plumping down to the forest floor below.

For most people her age, Hunters and Huntress in training included, landing on your two feet while carrying someone amid falling from the sky would be a daunting task. Thankfully years of stealth training and her Faunus reflexes gave Bella just enough experience so when the two of them landed she was just able to land on her feet using her aura to absorb most of the shock.

Looking down in her arms the she could see the blonde boy's face almost turn pale as he opened his mouth to whisper a quiet thank you before asking if he could get up now.

"Are you ok?" she asked him to see him fumble with his jean pockets before he took a small pill bottle out swallowing one of the pills.

"Yeah, I'm fine now, thanks for the save, I'm Jaune Arc by the way, and may I know the name of my beautiful savior?" the color of his face having now changed from pale into peach.

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes as his attempt at flirting before answering "I'm Bella Nightshade, now do you have a partner Jaune Arc? If so, I'm pretty sure they would have told you that any Hunter or Huntress could have made that fall, still it was nice of you to try that."

Before he could even answer her, she heard multiple large crashing noises to her left and she along with the three other people standing beside her watched in both shock and awe as out came none other than an Ursa with a short ginger haired hammer wield girl riding on its back. The ginger let out a hearty laugh before she rolled of the creatures back.

"Its broken" she said with almost a hint of regret in her voice, as Bella her another, this time masculine voice come out from the same part of the forest.

"Nora, please for the love of all that is holy, just warn me before you do that again." Bella could see now that Nora was now somehow gone even though she was just looking at her half a second ago.

"I'm queen of the castle, I'm queen of the castle" Bella turned back to the ruins to see somehow Nora had made it to the to the relics as was now dancing and singing while holding said respective chess piece in her hand.

"Did that girl just ride an Ursa?" she turned back to her Yang ask if almost to no one.

"I. . ." Bella tried to answer her but was once again interrupted by yet more screeching this time to her right side as out of the forest came a sprinting Pyrrha Nikos, the skittering of a Deathstalker right behind her.

"Jaune!" the red headed champion ran up to him with relief in her voice "I'm happy your safe."

Bella could see him rubbing the back of his head as he pointed his right arm to her "Well, you have to thank Bella over here, she saved me during my" he paused "My attempt to rescue her."

Pyrrha turned to her giving her a quiet thank you before, Bella saw her partner jump from the branches above them down to the ground.

"You made it, Bella!" Ruby's voice was gushing with adrenaline as Bella could hear her voice getting slightly faster "I just knew you could make the jump, and the way you saved Jaune was amazing and. . ." and with that Bella saw Yang Xiao Long rush up behind to smother her partner in a bear hug.

"Their you are sis, I knew you could make it!" She saw Ruby turn to face Yang returning the hug "I'm so happy too see you also sis" she turned out of the hug to face her "And look, Bella is my partner now, who is your partner sis?"

"That would be me." Bella could see her partners face turn almost as white as she turned around to see a very annoyed looking Weiss Schnee.

"Oh no no no, Yang don't tell me _she's_ your partner!"

"Oh, help me that I not only had to get an air headed blond as my partner but also _you_ of all people are related to her? This must be a test from Oum himself!"

She could see Yang's hair start to glow as the two shorter girls continued to argue "Sis, please tell me that she won't be on our team, right?"

"_Our team?_ Please, you wouldn't be skilled enough to be on any team seeing as you're two years younger than the rest of us."

"HEY, that means nothing I'm just as skilled as the rest of you guys."

"**ENOUGH!" **Bella could see Yang's hair turn into a golden glow and her eye color change from a lighter lilac to a dark blood red, as she was yelling by this point "**I THINK WE HAVE A BIGGER ISSUE AT HAND RIGHT NOW!**" she took a deep breath, her hair changing back into a more mellow blonde color and her eye color returning to normal.

She pointed her hand up into the Nevermore flying down ever so closer to them and then pointed to the Deathstalker that couldn't have been more than a couple hundred feet away from them "I think we might have to take care of them first. Before we start arguing among ourselves"

* * *

Ruby let out a battle cry as she charged at the Deathstalker, she had to show Weiss and the rest of them that not only did she know what she was doing, but how stylish she could look while doing so, she wasn't a child, she was a Huntress in training!

Firing Crescent Rose to launch her forward she took a swing at the Deathstalker's claws before it caught her in mid air with its right claw and threw her in said direction. Shifting her back into hybrid mode she shot herself back to the direction of the Deathstalker and soon found herself trying to keep balance on the massive Grimm's back.

Now on its back she swung her scythe down to its armored carapace and let lose shot after shot of high caliber rifle bullets into its back and head. However, it was only after the first couple of shots did her see that her shots were doing less damage than she thought they would and then remembered why _'Oh nuts, I forgot that the back of the Deathstalker is where thickest armor is, its on the sides and underbelly where these shots would really count.'_ She could only feel sorry for herself for a quick second before the Deathstalker threw her off its back.

This time was worst however as she couldn't keep her grip on Crescent Rose and the two of them were sent sprawling to the ground right in front of it. Ruby could see her sister scream out her name as she rushed towards her as she tried to get back Crescent Rose was only a couple feet away from her. However, before she could reach the weapon, she heard the cries of the Nevermore above her and the whistling sounds of feathers as one of them hit the corner of her cape pinning her down.

"Ruby get out of their now!" she looked up to see Yang try to sprint to her, but then looked back knowing that the Deathstalker would get to her first and tried her best to pry out the feather but to no effect. By this point the Deathstalker was only about 15 feet away from her. Was this really the end the end of her as she closed her eyes to try and avoid the investable.

The last thing she heard before closing her eyes was the sound of what appeared to be the spinning of a weapon barrel as she closed her eyes.

"Open your eyes, now." That voice, it couldn't be, Ruby opened her eyes and right in front of her wasn't Yang, her partner Bella, or even Jaune, it was a grumpy looking Weiss standing in front of her, a frozen Deathstalker stinger right above her head, her rapier in hand.

"Weiss?" her voice laced with confusion on bewilderment as she saw her walk to where Crescent Rose was picking up the weapon which she then tossed to her. Catching it she quickly cut down the Nevermore feather stuck to her cape quickly following up by getting of the ground.

"Ruby Rose, you are so many things, bullheaded, ignorant, irrational, dim-witted, _and_ hyperactive. However, from what I just saw you do have one thing going for you, your skilled. And right now, that's all you need, and while thankfully you're not my partner, I know how Hunter teams are formed at Beacon and I have a feeling we will be working with each other a lot more in these next four years. So please, don't get yourself killed just yet, I don't think your sister would forgive me or herself if you died right now." With her triad done Weiss turned to face the Deathstalker "Now please let's get back to the others. This ice can't hold the beast forever."

"Thanks?" she he said, he didn't really know how to feel with the words Weiss just told her, she still sounded like she thought herself above her, yet the tone of her voice was softer than what she sounded like in her previous talks with her. Maybe she was starting to open up to her?

"I'm sorry I was just trying to show you that I was just as skilled as the rest of you guys." Her voice low, now she felt just a little bad now, here she was saying that she could hold up with the rest of them yet here she was being saved by Weiss of all people.

Weiss gave out a quiet sigh "Its fine now let's regroup with the others, get the relic and get this initiation done with" with that she walked off to rejoin the group.

Steeling herself up she whispered to herself how she had normal knees and how she was just a normal student with nothing special. Taking a glance at the Deathstalker she could see what Weiss said had some credence to it as the stinger was beginning to move in the ice.

She then felt Yang's bosom on the back of her head as she was brought into another tight hug, the second one today "So happy you're ok, I knew my partner wouldn't let you get hurt, Weiss-Cream might be cold but I don't think she would allow you to actually get hurt."

Ruby hugged Yang back but was interrupted by the caw of the Nevermore above, still showing the clear danger that the group had. "Now sis, I think we should take my partners advice and get the heck outta Dodge"

The two of them sprinting back into regroup. "So, what do we do now?" Jaune asked, Ruby could see the he clearly antsy any wanted to get out of the forest as fast as possible and for once she couldn't agree more. Ruby could see the rest of the group look doe eyed apart from Weiss who looked almost just as annoyed as Jaune looked antsy.

Deciding that if no one would answer him she took the lead and spoke " What Weiss told me earlier was right, all we have to do is grab those relics , get out of the Emerald Forest and get to the cliffside and our initiation is over with " she gave a slight nod to Weiss who to her surprise replicated it and she continued to speak " Do the rest of you guys agree with this?" she could see the rest of the group, nod in agreement as they all went into the ruins to collect a relic piece. Looking around she saw Blake pick up a horse looking piece from a pillar "You don't mind being a knight, do you?" a small grin growing on her face.

"I don't mind at all." She answered back as she saw Ren, Jaune and Pyrrha take the same piece that Nora had, and that Weiss and Yang had Knight pieces as well. Looking back, she could see by this point that the Deathstalker had almost entirely broken itself out from the icy prison that Weiss had put it in and that the Nevermore was getting ever so closer to their location.

"I think its time we left." this time it was Ren who spoke, Ruby noted that this the first time she had heard someone other than herself and Jaune speak about the plan to escape, this gave her a bit more comfort knowing that while the rest of the group might not of shown it they at least were agreeing with the plan made.

"Right, "she pointed to the south towards the cliffs "If were lucky enough we should make it before the Grimm catch up to us. Now let's go!" She could only hear very faintly in the background her sister telling Weiss that she told her not to underestimate her younger sister, Ruby was very happy she was leading the group so that they wouldn't see her blush.

* * *

Pyrrha and the rest of the group had just gotten out of the forest and could start to see the cliffs in the near by distance when the Nevermore had caught up to them. They had entered another set of ruins, this time two parallel sets of pillars leading up to an old stone bridge in front of an even older stone tower.

Now the group had split up into two, with Jaune, Nora, Ren and she had taken the left side while, Ruby, Yang, Weiss and Bella had taken the right side. Taking out Milos in its rifle form she peaked out and could see it had now taken roost on top of the old stone tower in front of them.

"Well that's great" she could see an irate Yang tell out the obvious block in the groups past when in the forest behind them the Deathstalker had burst out, it seemed the Grimm had finally caught up with them. She could see the rest of the group start to run for the bridge though and had joined them as the Nevermore soared off the tower.

While running she heard Ren say something "Nora, distract it." And could see the ginger take her grenade launcher out and start firing on the Nevermore, she herself knowing that the Deathstalker couldn't have been far behind her stopped moving and turned back taking potshots at the thing before it could reach Nora.

Thankfully, Ren and Bella were able to distract the beast before it had reached her, and she saw Weiss using one of her Glyphs to move her out of the fray. Giving the others more time by taking more shots at the Deathstalker near the start of the bridge, the eight of them were now running on the stone bridge adjacent to the stone tower. It was only now she had heard the cries of the Nevermore getting ever so louder and saw on the right corner of her eye that it was now on a crash collision course straight towards the bridge!

"Look out!" she cried as she was able to grab Jaune by his hoodie and pull him closer to her as the flying beast crashed into the bridge tearing it in two leaving the group scattered. Getting up she could see Ren and Bella already started taken shots and hacking at the Deathstalker when she entered the fight.

"Nora some assistance over here!" she heard Ren cry out as she had now shifted Milos into is spear form and started trying to jab the eyes of the beast out. "Okie Dokie Ren!" was the only reply she heard as only a split second after, grenades started to fall on its head. This however, only seemed to enrage it more as it charged at them and had managed to knock Bella of the bridge's edge with its claws.

Luckily, she saw Bella able to use her weapon as a grappling hook as she saw her hook on to one of the remaining pillars on a different bridge and was now helping fight the Nevermore. This however, left them with only the three of them fighting it. It seemed like it would be able to push them off the bridge when Jaune pointed out a crucial detail. "Look at its head armor," she could see him trying his best to point to it while blocking one of the Deathstalkers giant claws with his shield "It has cracks forming on it now, I think if either you or Ren could get on it you guys might be able to kill the damn thing!"

Taking a glance and a nod at Ren was all she needed before he was able to give her enough suppressing fire for her to charge it, dodging its giant claw she jumped on it and started run towards its head dodging the deadly stinger strikes, and she reach the head and stabbed Milo deep into it.

Shoving the spear deeper into its head, she then shifted it back into its rifle form and started taking shot after shot, she heard the beast cry out in anguish as it tried her best to buck her off, and it during this it almost succeeded it hitting her with its stinger.

Thankfully, Ren had gotten on top of it had using his own weapons started helping her, fire on its head, seeing this alongside Jaune slashing on its side and even Nora somehow got involved, wailing on its claws with her hammer gave her just enough confidence that she along with the rest of them would survive this.

With one final cry the beast went limp and she could see it start to disintegrate into black ash. Helping the others get back up she turned and asked Nora "How did you get over here? I could of swore you were with the others." Nora only let out a tiny giggle as she shifted her hammer back into a grenade launcher and just pointed at it.

"Oh, never mind that then." She turned around to face the cliffside to see how the rest of the group was doing and what she saw really astonished her. The other half of them had not only manage to freeze the Nevermore on the bottom of the cliffside but she now witness Ruby get slingshot directly to its head and using the recoil of her scythe along with Weiss's Gylphs to shoot the beast up to the top of the cliff and behead the giant bird!

"Damn, that was something" Jaune said she could see his face almost slack jawed at what he just witnessed

Nora on the other hand had a tad bit of a different comment "Pulease, I bet we could have done something twice as cool as that!" Pyrrha heard Ren sigh to himself as she let out a small giggle as the four of them made their way to the cliff, she now was certain that choosing to go to Beacon was the right choice for her, she had a new friend in Jaune, Ren and Nora looked like competent fighters and the other four girls? She had a feeling they had the possibility of not only being as good as fighting as her, but also just as good friends.

* * *

Orion took center left stage on the amphitheater stage as he continued to read out the new formed teams "Russel Thrush, Cardin Winchester, Dove Bronzewing, Sky Lark, the four of you have retrieved the black bishop pieces. From this day forward you shall work together as Team CRDL, led by: Cardin Winchester", Orion's voice echoed throughout the amphitheater as he heard the sound of applause take over.

Alongside the applause he found himself lost in thought '_Still don't know why Ozpin made me read out the team rosters this year, pretty sure he does this. Maybe he just wants me to learn the student's names faster? Anyways, best get this over with and start reading those books, Oum only knows I don't have much time before these kids start putting their emotional baggage on me.'_

He eventually cut out his thoughts as the sound of applause petered out and the four young men walked off the stage, resetting the viewing screen above, looking back down to his scroll he had to stop his eyes from widening from what he saw before he started to talk again

"Jaune Arc, Lie Ren, Pyrrha Nikos, Nora Valkyrie. The four of you retrieved the white rook pieces. From this day forward you will work together as Team JNPR" he had to catch his breath before he continued, just what was Ozpin thinking making him the leader?

"Led by: Jaune Arc." He could see the young mans eyes widen in a similar fashion to his original reaction upon reading what was on the scroll, he knew the potential the boy had, but Ozpin making the boy leader? Just what was his plan in all this, he quickly stole a glance to his left where Ozpin was standing and could see the old coot with a twinkle in his eye, that solidified his assumption that he planned it from the start.

"Led by who?" Jaune voice rough was as Orion saw his partner, Pyrrha Nikos give him a friendly bump on the shoulder which led to the poor young man falling on his behind amongst an uproar of laughter.

"Congratulations Mr. Arc." He told him as he allowed the applause to conclude itself before give the newly formed team JNPR a curt nod seeing them walk of the stage as the viewing screen reset itself for the last team, he would read out today.

If what he saw with Team JNPR caught his eye, this last team caught his full blown attention as what he knew what he saw now would be one of if not the most interesting team formed this year "And finally, Yang Xiao Long", '_One of my nieces that I need to catch up with'_ , " Weiss Schnee", _'Ex-Heiress of the biggest Dust company in all of Remnant, hopefully I don't get on her bad side, already have enough problems with Atlas', _"Bella Nightshade" ,_ ' The name on her files says otherwise, Blake Belladonna, that last name could it really be related to who I think it is?' _, " and Ruby Rose" '_And finally none other than the not so little anymore Ruby Rose , the daughter of Summer Rose, the woman who help open up myself with the rest of Team STRQ and treated me like family.' _

"The four of you retrieved the white knight pieces. From this day forward. You will work together as Team RWBY, led by: "now this surprised he even more than Jaune being the leader of Team JNPR "Ruby Rose!" he immediately scanned the four girls faces to see their reactions, he really wanted to see how they reacted.

As expected, Yang had put her cousin, no sister, into a big hug "I'm so proud of you!" he could hear the sheer pride in her voice as she snuggled the smaller girl into her bosom. Ruby as he expected had almost the same expression as Jaune did just moments before. Moving to Bella, he could see her raise one of her eyebrows and started to clap alongside the rest of the crowd, she must have been almost just as surprised as her partner at the fact she had been chosen to lead them.

Finally taking a glance at the final girl, Miss Schnee, he found her reaction most peculiar of all, instead of the shocked and angry expressions he imagined her to have she was rather straight faced, the only thing of note that he could notice was a slight droop on her face and he could hear her whisper 'I had a feeling this would happen.' To herself. Besides that, she seemed to clap alongside Bella and the rest of the crowd.

"It seems that this year is being shaped to be very interesting" he took one quick glance as Ozpin, this time however instead of the twinkle he had put on a different mask. The same straight face he saw last week, one hiding any and all attention, it was the face of a man who had a plan and held all the cards in his hand.

'_Interesting year indeed'_ he thought to himself as he allowed the sounds of applause take over his wandering mind.


	5. Chapter 5

A Different Point of View

_Adam could feel the Mistralian sunlight hammer down on the two of them as he deflected strike after strike of Artemis's duel kukris with Wilt. It seemed that his Master decided that he wouldn't let up today and Adam could not seem to find an open space where he could use Wilts superior range to his advantage._

_After barely being able to push back Artemis to a more acceptable range, he feinted back unholstering out Blush and tried to build space by trying to create suppressive fire where is Master was. While the bullets were easily deflected by the duel wielding warrior, it did give Adam what he crucially needed now: a breathing space to time his next strike. Sheathing Wilt he started to circle his Master trying to see if he would make a mistake that would give him the opening he needed._

_"Come on Adam! I know you have the capability to land a hit on me! You've done it before." His master had now shifted Artemis back into its compound bow form and had notched an arrow ready to draw watching him circle around. Adam could see his wide smile right below his white mask, his slicked back dark hair was dripping with sweat by this point along with his white tank top and black sweatpants. Adam knew they had been sparring for the past hour and he was starting to reach his limit. He knew what ever strike he made would most likely be his last._

_His master was the first one to break the ice as he let loose his arrow and Adam countered by shooting out Wilt to deflect it. Using this opening he rushed forward firing Blush with his right hand as he saw Wilt's hilt stop the arrow mid flight and grabbed with his left-hand charging at his master who had Artemis shift back into kukris blocking his gunfire._

_Twisting Wilt forward again he charged at him and at the very last moment tried to feint to the left to catch him off guard. Sadly, it seemed his Master read his move just as well as he had and strike him down to the ground using his kukris. The wooden floor of the training dojo tasted particularly like Redwood Remover that day as he was sent sprawling on the ground. Looking up he saw a kukri a few inches from his face._

_"Do you yield Adam?" his voice calm and collected as Adam took the opportunity glance to his left seeing Blush off his belt, only a foot away. Taking the opportunity, he rolled for it before a voice broke through the air._

_"Boss wake up. Boss you have to wake up now she's back here again." The voice cut though the air as Adam's world began to spiral around him, his vision became more and more dark. The last thing he saw was his Master's face before the nothingness consumed him._

. . .

When Adam woke up the first thing, he noticed a cold sweat running down his face. Taking a moment to dry his face with a handkerchief; he swerved his chair to face the person who had called him out of his memory. It was none other than his right- hand man, Lieutenant Banesaw, what surprised him was the fact that the normally stoic giant of a Faunus looked like something had caused him great discomfort and what could even be described as distress.

He even had his mask off showing his hazel eyes and chiseled face dotted with numerous small scars and a frown on his lips. Adam sighed putting his right hand on his forehead tilting his head downwards.

"What has she done now." He asked Banesaw, putting his hand down turning up to face him.

"She back again, I told her what your policy was and tried to get her to leave." His voice turned quiet at the end as he took a small pause "Her eyes boss, you should have seen her eyes, they were glowing and then there was fire and-"Adam looked up as soon as he heard the word fire staring at the man.

"Bring her to me, don't bother with the blindfold, and please make sure she doesn't make a scene while coming up here." Adam told Banesaw as he opened his mouth to try to calm down his second in command. "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing." Adam saw Banesaw give a short nod, his face seeming to slacken a little as he reached to his belt and put his mask back on.

Banesaw took a short bow and left the room, leaving Adam to swivel his chair to face the generously sized window behind it. Leaning forward he unlocked the bottom of the window and opening it, he felt the warm Valean harbor breeze wash over his body.

Looking out into the Valean sea, Adam stared at his reflection in the sea bellow, gone was the rebel, the underdog, in his place stood a leader, gone was his old uniform he worm for years, he didn't need to be a renegade anymore.

Gone was his old blazer and uniform, now stood a new Faunus: one with the same colors, now reborn into something greater: a black pinstriped suit with an accompanying red undershirt and a black tie, black trousers, black boots, and finally a black trench coat with red highlights topped with black gloves: and the coup de grâce: a small rose patch right on his heart. Now which once was a slave was trained into a leader. The only thought going through his mind was now that he had it, could he finish the promise he made to himself and his mentor.

After what felt like an eternity of him listening to the waves bellow him, he heard a soft knock on the door. It was Cinder, before he answered he remembered one last thing that his mentor once told him relating to people like her.

'_In this world, there are people who will offer you money, power, control, with honeyed and veiled words, remember, these are the types of people that if you work with you must have a plan to deal with, lest you forget you have signed your soul off to the devil themselves.'_

"Come in" he said , closing the window and swivel his chair to face her, he only hoped that his mask would help him hide his emotions underneath. As the door opened slowly, in walked in none other than Cinder Fall, a small seductive smirk on her face as she slowly sundered on inside the small room softly closing the door behind her.

Her appearance unchanged to Adam from last time, fair almost pale white skin, the same blood red v-neck minidress, her black coal-like hair running down her neck almost covering her left amber colored eye, and that same damn smirk he remembered seeing on her last time. It reminded him of his master when he had hatched up a scheme, the difference being that his was full of life while Cinder reminded him of almost the Brother Grimm himself, cold, calculated, inhuman perhaps.

Leaning over the small ornate wooden desk in-front of him he pointed to a small seat "Take a seat please, I see your back here once again." Adam told her as she took her seat the smirk never leaving her face. "So, I see you have returned here, even after what I told you last time, I will tell you one more time: The Brotherhood will _never _work for you or whoever you work with and that's final" his voice soft but firm as he crossed his hands together putting his elbows on the table. Than she did something he didn't expect, she laughed, it was a quiet one but echoed deeply in the small closed off room.

"I thought you would say something like Adam." her voice sounding like honey, soft but something one could get stuck in if not careful. He swore he saw her eyes start to glow as he felt the room around him starting to get warmer, his master told him of people with that type of power, he only hoped that Cinder wasn't one of them.

"Now let us please reconsider what you mean by never, I have a feeling that I can give you an offer which you simply can not resist." Cinder told him the glow of her eyes almost becoming like dancing candlelight as her face split into a cruel smile. He could feel the bookshelves and paintings in the room start to melt around his eyes in the small room as dread started to enter the back of his mind.

…

"Thank you for the negotiations Adam, it will be a pleasure working for you in the future, and please don't forget." her eyes took on the same eerie orange glow.

"What will happen if you _ever_ double cross me. I will be in touch ta-ta." With that Cinder slowly stood up and quietly walked out the room leaving Adam along in the near suffocating atmosphere.

Putting his hands in his face he slowly took of his mask, letting himself see his reflection inside, one blue and one red eye flicking with a multitude of emotions surrounding them.

Putting it down on his desk he reached for his scroll inside the desk, and called his Lieutenant "Banesaw, I need you to get me Fennec and Corsac, tell them I have an _extended _mission for them and to come to my office immediately for briefing. " his voice horse as he put the scroll down on his desk and awaited for the two brothers to come.

Out of the veteran members, Fennec and Corsac were two of the most skilled, trustworthy, and loyal members; Adam knew, they were also some of the only members in the Brotherhood who still held anti-human sentiments, Adam couldn't understand why or how they held it after all this time considering who helped form and legitimize the Brotherhood alongside being his mentor happened to be a human, but he digressed: these two were the only ones he could think of to be able to do this job.

As he waited for them to arrive, Adam stood up and took his time to grab another seat and placed it next to the one present, he needed both brothers to be seated for what he was about to tell them.

After a couple of minutes Adam could hear footsteps approaching and shortly after, a knock on his door. "Come in you two." His voice quiet.

In walked the two brothers, both wearing matching black tunics, with white sleeves with black fingerless gloves and matching red cloaked hoods, the only thing distinguishing the two being that Fennec had his brown fox ears stick out of his hood while Corsac had a brown tail coming right out of his lower back, how the two brothers continued to wear their thick, constricting Menagerie attire, even when they were located near the very edge of the Valean docks was unknown even to himself.

Adam waved to the seats, "Sit down you two," he paused as the brothers took their seats, he could see the interest of why he called them in their eyes, " I have a new mission for you two: I need you two to lead the White Fang."

* * *

The hue of the full moon's light reflected down on to the Valean city as Roman quietly moved his hired gaggle of goons into the guard less harbor warehouse. If Roman could give Cinder credit for one thing it was the fact that she somehow knew where all the Dust shipments from Atlas were coming into harbor and when the perfect time to strike each one of them.

While it concerned him a little how she knew about each single Dust shipment and how insanely accurate she was with the information he put those thoughts into the back of his mind, he knew thinking about things like that would inevitably lead him into questions and in the couple of months he worked with her the one thing he knew for certain: Cinder Fall did not like to give very good answers.

"Alright, you two" he pointed to two of the black suited goons on his right "You go on that side and get as much dust as you can." watching the two go into the dimly lit warehouse he turned to his left and gave the same orders to the two other goons at his disposal and soon all four of them were in the depths of the warehouse getting as much Dust as possible.

As Roman walked deeper into the warehouse twirling his cane around in his hand, he couldn't help but ask himself just what Cinder needed all this Dust for.

'_Almost 9 months I've been doing this damn job and I still don't know fucking know what this annoying bitch wants with all this.' _he thought to himself counting each lane of shipping containers tallying them for later reference to report back to Cinder.

'_No one person needs this much Dust, much less no one could even find a use for this much Dust, still after all this is done Neo and I are going to take a nice long vacation in Tahiti.' _his thoughts continued as he had now walked to the end of the warehouse and had counted a total of 15 shipping containers totaling more than 250,000 pounds of Dust, he knew he couldn't be able to grab it all right now but this was only a recon mission and the next night they would return with the equipment needed to grab all of this.

Counting to himself after the 9 months of working for her he had amassed himself over 3 million pounds of Dust: that was enough fucking Dust to fuel all of Vale for at least two and a half years! It was only by sheer luck, and his skill as a master smuggler and thief which kept all the dust spread out enough in various safehouses for the authorities to not find it. It still bothered him that after all this time the Schnee Dust Company hadn't crackdown harder in the past months, and when he questioned why to Cinder, she only laughed and told him.

"_Don't you worry Roman, you need not to worry about any interference on that end, just make sure any Huntsman that interfere with us are dealt with."_ A large crash behind him and the stomping of boots of the floor took his attention back to the task at hand.

A frown started to form on his face as he turned around seeing it was the VPD, a SWAT team to be more precise as a he saw a bright light and a laser dot now pointed at his chest down the warehouse lane as they started to flood inside. They yelled for him to put his hands up and drop the cane.

"Finally, this is where the fun begins." Roman whispered to himself as he raised Melodic Cudgel up and pulled the trigger. A flash of red flew down the hallway as he saw it explode on impact as the gunfire started. Using the explosion as cover forward a couple of feet taking refuge behind one of the shipping containers to his right.

Peaking his head over he could see the chaos unfold as gunfire and yelling started to engulf the warehouse, taking the occasional pot shot, Roman made his way forward trying to see if there was a any sort of gap or telling that the tide of officers flooding it would stop. He was only about 20 feet away and behind one of the crates before he heard a cock of a hammer behind him.

"Roman Torchwick, drop the weapon and put your hands on your head, you're under arrest." the muffled voice told him as Roman peaked back to see a VPD SWAT member with a Cobra revolver pointed right at the back of head.

Roman chuckled as he snarked back "And what are the charges officer?" as he quickly ducked swiping his cane behind him into the officer smashing the man into the shipping container. To Romans surprise and credit, the impact didn't seem the stumble the officer much as he immediately got up and started firing at him. Being he was only maybe a foot and a half away Roman was able to deflect most of the bullets with Melodic Cudgel, with only one shot having to be absorbed by his aura.

However, the very last shot from the gun had knocked the weapon out of his hand as he now saw the officer running to take a swing at him. Bringing his arms up he absorbed the first blow and countered with a left hook. While it was a direct hit right in his chest his body armor seemed to absorb most of the shock and while Roman was strong, he couldn't do much do body armor with his bare hands.

This put him on the defensive, as his more armored opponent pushed forward unleashing a flurry of blows, Roman nimbly dodging each one, trying to find an opening he could exploit, at the very least he could respect the VPD finally sending someone with some skill trying to capture him as he continued the game as he finally saw the officer overextend his right arm in one of his punches, this was his chance.

Grabbing the arm with his right hand, he quickly swept his left leg into the man's legs stumbling him, following that up with a right kneecap into his chest and an upper cut right in the mans face sent the man into the shipping container again, this time however he didn't get up.

Roman breathed out a small sigh as he wiped his gloved hands "Well, that was a good fight officer, but I have things to do and places to be." he remarked as he turned around to face a trio of SWAT officers, guns pointed at him, his weapon just a foot away from him on the floor almost taunting him.

The lead officer opened his mouth "Hands on your head now, Torchwick, there is nowhere you can go." he stated as Roman could hear the gunfire in the warehouse start to dissipate as the sound of boots started to grow behind him.

Just as Roman was about answer him a shimmer appeared behind the trio as the swipe of an umbrella cut through the air and through the three officers leaving them out cold on the ground, as Neo, his right hand woman, appeared from the mirage like shimmer.

"So, what took you so long to get here?" he snarked to the mute as she hopped over the trio of officers, grabbing Roman's weapon and tossing it to him, all while keeping a demure smile on her face.

She remarked back with a shrug as the two of them snuck their way to the entrance of the warehouse, Roman could hear the sirens of the police vehicles get louder as the two of them got closer to the entrance.

Taking a small detour to the left right before they got to close to the door, Roman peered out of one of the windows and saw numerous VPD police cars, SWAT carriers, and even one APC, he felt a tinge of pride upon seeing the last one, the VPD was finally considering him somewhat of a threat, even if the only things Cinder had hired him to do was rob Dust for almost a year now.

He turned to Neo "And the others?" he asked her.

A short nod from side to side confirmed what he thought, it was just him and her now, which was bad, they were expendable, and this would make their escape easier.

"Well then, lets get out, and report to Cinder, we'll have to come back here another day to finish the job." he saw a small frown start to form on Neo as he let out a sigh.

"And then after that we can go to your favorite sorbet shop, I'll buy you your favorite." As he saw a smile return to her face as the two of them using Neo's semblance snuck out into the night undetected. The night was still young, and mischief and mayhem still had to be done.

* * *

Even after years of being here Doctor Merlot found the difference between night and day to be difficult to distinguish, granted most of the time he was located deep in his laboratory far from the surface. It still bothered him to no end when he went up for some fresh air it was hard to see what celestial body lit up the sky.

But, right now that didn't matter, not only had he finally broken down the final barriers to finish his magnum opus: the Νέμεση but he was only weeks away from completing it.

After finally finding a strong enough human base it was only a matter of time before he could splice it with the strongest Grimm species to finish the project: the first of his Bio Organic Grimm creations or, B.O.G's for short. Νέμεση being the vanguard as it was the first Human-Grimm Hybrid ever created. Merlot could only feel glee as he looked up from his computer to the glass cylinder in front of him.

The floating body in the dark murky water, he had hoped, would be the very thing that could help change the tides in Salem's eternal war, he laughed and scoffed at her plan to find and use the so-called maidens and their magic. Science and his creations would be all she needed to create the new world order not stories of magic and superstition.

As he was typing along going through codes of DNA scanning for imperfections a knock came at his door a voice followed shortly after, "Doctor, Mistress Salem has called a meeting, we are starting in ten, I suggest you should be there."

Merlot sighed, more meetings which would delay his progress, at the very least Salem sent Doctor Watts to get him this time. While he didn't have the best relationship with Arthur Watts, he at least respected the man as a fellow man of science and was much more enjoyable to talk with at time rather than the lumbering hunk of muscle known as Hazel or the inane and insane Tyrian.

"Alright, give me a second, I need to tidy up in here a bit" he responded as he saved his location and began to move things away from his cluttered desk. He was so engrossed in his current work that his lab which was already on the brink of becoming a mess was now near complete chaos. Moving to clean up the cluttered papers and vials on his desk he heard the sound of a foot tapping behind his laboratory door.

"Any day now Merlot, you know Salem does not like tardiness.", his voice holding a slight bit of annoyance at the end.

Merlot sighed, as he stopped trying to clean the complete chaos that was hit laboratory and made his way to his front door. The lab looked like to his annoyance what people imagined a mad scientists lab would look like: test tubs everywhere, desks full of cryptic papers and multiple cylinders full of mysterious green glowing liquid. It took him a minute to get through all the mess unscathed, but he found a way.

He pushed the button opening his sliding door up and found one Dr. Arthur Watts look down at his wristwatch right in front of his door. "I'm here now, let's just go and get this over with, I have work to do."

The two men made they way up to the meeting room in silence, the only thing the men shared was their mutual respect for each other's work, Merlot while he never said it to his face had known about Watt's Atlasian past and thought it was a crime how he was let go, and while he had never heard it from Watts himself, Merlot could of sworn he heard a hit of respect from the man when he saw some of his creations.

It was a decent walk to the walk as Merlot took the time to look outside the windows and saw the shattered moon and its light reflect into the tower, it must have been hours since he got in his lab, he remembered seeing the sun when he got food the last time.

"I do hope you have made progress on your _creature_ of yours, this meeting is being made to give a progress report to Salem." Watts finally interjected as the two were at the doors of the meeting room.

Merlot only chuckled as he turned to face the man "Oh Watts, my Νέμεση is nearly complete, in fact I think once you will it you will be surprised" as he turned back and opened the door.

As the two walked in, Merlot could see the rest of Salem's Council already seated in the large windowed room, Salem herself of course sat in the crystal throne facing the door, to her direct left squatting on the seat was the Scorpion Faunus known as Tyrian Callows, he was quietly ranting and raving to himself as always, to her right seat was Hazel Rainart, the man just as gruff and quiet as ever and finally floating to her immediate left was small Seer Grimm with the small face of Cinder Fall in its reflection.

"Come you two, take a seat we have much to discuss." Salem said, her commanding tone and hand gestures showing the two to sit down. Merlot decided to go to his left to sit next to Hazel, at the very least the man was quiet and much more tolerable than Tyrian.

Salem spoke again as he sat down "Now that we are all here, I would love to hear your reports on the assignments I have given you this past year. Tyrian why don't you start first, have you found the location of the Summer Maiden in Vacuo?"

The Faunus upon hearing his name had his small grin transform into a sadistic smile as he sat up a little, "Why yes Mistress, I have found the location of the Summer Maiden, she is hidden deep within the _Altum Desert _deep in the middle part of the continent." His smile turned into a quick frown, "However, she is guarded by a nasty tribe and they are very good at guarding her. I was only able to scout out the general location. I'm sorry I have failed you Mistress." His voice cracking up near the end and his face seemingly wracked with fear.

"That is fine, the fact we know her location is good enough for now, your next assignment is to find the Spring Maiden, I believe she located some where in Mistral." Merlot could see Tyrian face switch back into joy as he bowed and thanked Salem profusely for his so-called failure.

She turned to Hazel next, "And you Hazel, have you finished_ convincing_ Headmaster Lionheart to help our cause?"

The man stood up and faced Salem and answered "Yes, After some _negotiations_ I can safely say Lionheart is under our influence and can be useful in the upcoming time as long as he is needed" as the man sat back down turning back into his quiet state.

"Excellent, you shall be here until I give you your next assignment." She turned to Watts now, "And you Watts, have you finished your program for the Atlasian Robots?"

The man stood up to answer her "Yes, Salem, all that is need is something to test it on and I believe it will be more than satisfactory." Sitting back down as the last word left his mouth. Salem's face seemed to have a small smile grow on it as she turned to face himself.

"And you Merlot, how is the subject going along? Are you close to it being available for use?"

It was finally his turn, he could finally explain his magnum opus, he stood up "Why yes Salem, after you gave me that human base strong enough, I was finally able to finish Νέμεση and it should be ready within the-" before he could continue speaking, the voice of Cinder Fall interrupted him from the Seer.

"And what is Νέμεση, and that name what does that even mean?" her tone just as grating as ever, if their was one person who Merlot found more intolerable than Tyrian it was Cinder Fall, the girl was nothing more than a power hungry fool and in his opinion not worthy of standing alongside the bringers of the new world.

"Why, Νέμεση is none other than the world's first Human-Grimm hybrid!" he saw everyone attention grabbed with that, "The name is in Old Mistralian and is named after one of the great heroes of old; Nemesis: The Bringer of Vengeance, I thought it would be fitting to name this first creation after something like that. Why, are we all trying to bring vengeance to a world that scored us all?" he turned look at them all, seeing the various small nods or gleams of interests in eyes.

"In fact, Νέμεση is almost complete and I believe I could send him to help your little quest in Vale.", he small grin forming in his mind, Vale would be the perfect place to test his creation, that was where _he_ was, and maybe just maybe he would one up Cinder in the very process, as he smiled to himself and continued to talk to rest of them long into the night.

* * *

**Merry Christmas, sorry I'm late, also I'm looking for beta readers so PM if you would like to, also look out for something new soon (hopefully I swear.)**


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